The Biscuits

The Biscuits
'(I Want To) Join The Army' c/w 'Squarebashing'
Released 1st November 1968. Wolfsbane WLF 004

Brad McGoohan (vcls, lead kazoo), Tim Coffin (guitar), Oliver Thackeray (Mellotron), Clement St Claverley (sitar), 'Geezer' Coffin (bass), Heinz Lovar (drums)

"The funny thing was…' says Oliver Thackeray today '…that if Brad really had wanted to join the army, it's almost 110% certain that they wouldn't have had him even if there was a war on, which Brad constantly hoped there would be. He liked war, did Brad".

Despite this, The Biscuits were probably the only psych-pop group to be run on a strict, military basis. After answering an advertisement in The Melody Maker for 'Disciplined, Aggressive, Amoral Musicians', Thackeray, like all recruits to The Biscuits, was forced to undergo physical training and faced hours and hours of McGoohan screaming in his face.

He was also kitted out in The Biscuits' official nazi inspired military uniform and each member of the group had to be able to totally disassemble his instrument in the dark and then put it back together again. This often caused problems.

Thackeray again : "Taking my Mellotron apart in the dark was a bit of a hassle. The bloody thing was a liability to play live in the first place, but after I'd stripped it down to its seven hundred and thirteen component parts and then attempted to reassemble it without a screwdriver, it was an expensive piece of junk, basically. All I could get out of it was a noise like a dying herd of cattle, which Brad liked of course".

Strangely, The Biscuits' sound was a gentle, swimmy affair and their only album, 'The Lapping Of Red Waves' gained them quite a following amongst the hippies of the day. At the time, McGoohan made sure that all drinks served at any venue they played were laced with LSD and then the group (without McGoohan) would take the stage and play quiet, jazzy improvisations, lulling the hippies into a false sense of security.

When McGoohan judged that the time was right he would charge onto the stage, kazoo in mouth, and fire round after round of noisy blanks into the terrified crowd from a replica Mauser pistol, while screaming "War has broken out! War is here at last! We're all going to die!"

Says Thackeray : "To say that this 'freaked out' the audience would be an understatement, believe me! Sometimes he'd do the same thing but dressed as The Devil. Eventually, people stopped coming to our gigs, the record company dumped us and Brad became a Moonie. It was a relief, in a way. At least we didn't all have to get up at three-fifteen in the morning and run around The Kings' Road in full kit any more".

'(I Want To) Join The Army' only made the charts in Japan but its jingoistic lyrics, aggressive kazoo playing and groaning, ruined Mellotron give it a nightmarish quality, which remains popular with pysch enthusiasts and younger members of the armed forces.